Synths and Synths and Synths

[Acsii]

Yup the Roland is worth barely 200 in build quality

[Aurum Noble]

In my personal opinion, the Gaia looks like a mere toy when compared to the SH-201, which was a defining factor in me buying the latter over the former, however, both do look equally as plasticky, and the design and build quality is a far cry from the synths of the 80s and 90s (including my D-50), which is why I tend to prefer synths from these eras.

[the4thImpulse]

A wild Moog Little Phatty appeared in my local classifieds!

I was saving money for some other gear ('dot com' modular, MS-20, analog effect pedals and racks..) but the price they are offering it at is much better than the other used recording gear in my area.

Should I go for it?

[Acsii]

YES

[Facade]

Yes win...

also moog little phatty = mlp

[the4thImpulse]

YES

I've emailed the guy, really hoping I can meet him tomorrow on my only day off (I now work 6-7 days a week for most of the summer)

[the4thImpulse]

Its here!!!!

An boy does it sound good!

[ChocolateChicken]

So I have had Massive and the demo of Sylenth for some time now and I gotta give the title of "better synth" to Massive. In Massive, there is a lot more flexibility and precision with what it can do, and the modulation capabilities are more versatile, it seems, not to mention Massive has a larger selection of filters and waveforms, as well as the all-mighty performer.

Sylenth is pretty rad, but it seems to fall short with its modulation options. I am fully aware that the full version has the unlocked modulations, but Sylenth's modulation routing is quite old and not very precise or versatile in comparison with Massive. It's a shame, really; I was really prepared to love Sylenth.

I do like, in Sylenth, how each oscillator has its very own voicing, phase bending, stereo, detune, and volume options, as well as the fact that there are four oscillators in total. I also like the extensive built-in effects, but I don't see myself using Sylenth for anything that Massive, ES2, or Twin 2 can do.

For you Sylenth lovers out there, am I missing something about the synth that has the potential to change my mind about it?

[Facade]

wow 4th that's amazing!

once i get a job im gonna start doing electronics as a hobby and make my own synth

and then maybe in the future create a cloud synth (im dreaming now lol)

[Captain Ironhelm]

For you Sylenth lovers out there, am I missing something about the synth that has the potential to change my mind about it?

I absolutely love Sylenth for the quality of it's timbre. I can't quite place my finger on what it is exactly.

[Mr. Bigglesworth]

So my parents have confirmed to me that we're going to brisbane to get a synth for my birthday!
6 days remain~

[Mr. Bigglesworth]

I'm pretty excited. Finally having some proper hardware to play with is gonna be great.

[Acsii]

I was just about to ask you on Facebook if you got it yet XD

[the4thImpulse]

So my parents have confirmed to me that we're going to brisbane to get a synth for my birthday!
6 days remain~

The question now is what specific synths are you looking at getting?

Hardware synths are the best!

[Mr. Bigglesworth]

Novation Bass Station II, Minibrute or something similar. I'm only gonna be able to get one, so I'm gonna do some research about what the place we're going to has on offer.

EDIT: the Bass Station II and the Minibrute are the same price, the Novation Mininova is about $200 more. So either Minibrute or Bass Station II.

if i had the budget I'd buy a Virus synth of some variety

[Mr. Bigglesworth]

Think I might pick up some FX pedals at some point too.

[Acsii]

I'd go the bass station II

[HMage]

For you Sylenth lovers out there, am I missing something about the synth that has the potential to change my mind about it?

How it sounds. All the bells and whistles mean nothing if the end result doesn't sound good, no matter how many modulation options you can have. Each synth has their strong sides, and there are sounds that sylenth won't be able to do, but the sounds that it does sound exceptionally great.

Try making a 7-voice slightly detuned pluck with short lowpass filter attack time without Massive clicking like mad on attack. You have to set attack to be pretty slow to avoid clicking, but it loses all sharpness that way. Sylenth has no problems with sounding great no matter what you throw at it.

Btw, have you seen Massive's saw waveform? It not truly saw, and doing waveform algebra on them is painful -- that's probably why there are so many precooked waveforms in it.

[ChocolateChicken]

Hmage, your information intrigues me. In regard to the sound, wouldn't every saw sound pretty much the same as other saws? I feel like any minor differences might be unheard in the context of a mix. Or perhaps I'm just not as professional or experienced as yourself to the point where I can distinguish these audio differences.

As for pluck sounds in massive, I actually use a negatively modulated attack envelope instead of the decay like most people do; it allows me to achieve sharp plucks without waiting for the envelop to reach the decay portion.

And hmm, I actually didn't notice the saw waveform. I thought it included all the even and odd harmonics though like any other saw. Might this have something to do with the two different saw waveforms in the synth?

[Mr. Bigglesworth]

I'd go the bass station II

I probably will. But nonetheless I'm gonna do my research first.

[Captain Ironhelm]

So I just ripped the waveforms out of Sylenth (I exported to .wav and then cut out a single wavecycle) and loaded them up in Z3ta+2, and then I was able to use the variety of z3ta modulations on the Sylenth waveforms. On the straight sound without any sort of effects, envelopes, or all that jazz, it sounds the same regardless of pitch.

You can do the same with Massive (or any other synth) if there's a wavetable you like. In z3ta+2, load up both sides of the wavetable into separate oscillators, and then adjust the volume of each inversely to create the illusion of a wavetable.

kind of pointless. . . but kinda fun anyway.

[Mr. Bigglesworth]

That's actually kinda cool.
I did something similar with Massive and GMS.

[HMage]

Hmage, your information intrigues me. In regard to the sound, wouldn't every saw sound pretty much the same as other saws? I feel like any minor differences might be unheard in the context of a mix. Or perhaps I'm just not as professional or experienced as yourself to the point where I can distinguish these audio differences.

It's true that some nuances between synths will be lost in the mix, but there's still plenty of sonic character and that is something that's quite noticeable. It's sound alone was the reason why it is ranked #1 by computer music magazine and is always ranked higher than massive on KVR despite having very modest feature set.

http://www.musicradar.com/tuition/tech/ ... -262145/40

http://www.kvraudio.com/plugin-ranks.php

This is the de facto standard synth for commercial producers in all electronic genres, it's been for many years. It's baffling why in brony community it's a very little known synth. Deadmau5 used sylenth for Veldt pluck, here's my recreation — http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1375 ... lt.wav.mp3 — one instance of Sylenth.

Another thing that isn't obvious about sylenth — it is _very_ stacking friendly. It is consistent with phase between instances, if necessary, and I almost never use only one instance of sylenth for one sound, I combine them like mad, and because it's _very_ CPU light I can play 500 voices with comfortable CPU usage for one combined instrument.

As for pluck sounds in massive, I actually use a negatively modulated attack envelope instead of the decay like most people do; it allows me to achieve sharp plucks without waiting for the envelop to reach the decay portion.

Thanks, will try.

And hmm, I actually didn't notice the saw waveform. I thought it included all the even and odd harmonics though like any other saw. Might this have something to do with the two different saw waveforms in the synth?

Kinda self explanatory. Whatever that thing on top is — it's not true saw. It's more likely saw plus something else. If I want combine saw with half-cycle triangle so the phase cancels out every second cycle of saw (which is done very often), the resulting harmonics will be different and very audible if played on high notes.

I never liked how Massive handles high frequencies and how hollow the bottom end sounds as well, it sounds like candy coated with chocolate then sugar coated then dipped into honey and strawberry cream — it's too sugary and artificial for me, it's easy to spot Massive in brony music by these characteristics.

Sylenth is not a wavetable synth, it doesn't have a stored waveform that it repeats. It generates these waveforms on the fly, so that every cycle for every note sounds good without the artifacts of stretching pre-loaded waveform. White noise is really white noise — it doesn't cancel itself if applied twice with inverted phase.

[Acsii]

I've always been used to synths having different sounding oscillators seeming I've grown up around analogs but I've never seen a saw wave that's shaped like the one massive uses... like they're always the standard shape but they will have less or more noise (from the analog synths that is) I find that quite interesting about massive's saw, are ny of the other waveforms off in anyway?

[Facade]

i was looking at the cloud generator vco but i noticed there's no individual osc controls...

if im looking to build a hardware cloud in the future(far future) should i just get enough vcos to make 16 oscs? or is the cloud generator worth it?